GameEx 12.97 slower startup time

[Krakerman]

Tom I did notice with this release the statup time for GameEx is a little slow again.

[Draco1962]

I split this from the news item post as any issues require their own thread. You might want to provide a little more information and share some files for Tom to look at. Thanks!

[Krakerman]

Well it was the same issue in the past that Tom corrected that had something I believe to do with the UPNP support. There is nothing in the log files that will help him as everything runs fine it just takes between 7-8 secs to run after clicking the GameEx icon.

[Draco1962]

When we ask for the gameex.ini and/or log.txt files, there may be something we see that you may not that can lead to a fix for a problem.

Tom announced that he had made changes so that the databases now load during startup. That would cause some initial slowness upon starting the program and have no impact on UPNP. 7-8 seconds to pre-load with all of the databases for emulators that you are running is impressive in my opinion!

Please provide your log.txt file as it may better illustrate the slowness you are claiming for our review. Otherwise, I do not see that you have an issue to report as some slowness on initial load was anticipated.

[Krakerman]

Here you go! It just seemed after this last update it takes longer than it did before the update. You will see in the log all the emulators setup but I currently am not using alot of them since I don't have them yet setup with my new theme (that's why)

[Draco1962]

Just from a cursory review of the log are my observations:

From 20:09:48.5 12/23/2012: Opening Configuration File

To 20:09:53.1 12/23/2012: Restoring Emulator from Cache: 117

4.6 seconds

To 20:09:56.0 12/23/2012: Exiting GameEx!

2.9 seconds additional

7.5 seconds total

I believe that if you have the emulators setup, regardless of use, GameEx will still load the databases at the start. You have 121 emulator slots showing as loading. If they feel there is an issue or something I am missing, I am sure that Tom or Headkaze will respond.

[Krakerman]

How does that explain the faster load times before the update with the same amount of emulators? Maybe like you said the database loading in before possibly. It's not really that big of a deal as it just takes a few secs longer to startup. Maybe when I upgrade my system with a SSD drive it might be faster.

[Draco1962]

The initial load was faster if the databases are not loading at the beginning. Prior to the changes made to load the databases at the start of the load sequence, other changes were made that streamlined the database loads themeselves. So you would go from status quo, to slightly faster (due to streamlining processes), to slightly slower (loading databases first to take advantage of streamlining process changes prior).

[Bigby]

Is there anything I could do to speed up GameEx at start?

As you can see from my log file, it takes around 15 seconds.

log.txt

GameEx.ini

[Draco1962]

@Bigby - you are running more emulators than I am and it takes 15.9 seconds for your system to load vs. the 24 seconds it takes for mine to load. Honestly, you are loading with a good time so there is nothing to recommend for you! There are many things to be considered -

OS?

CPU?

Sidebus speed?

Amount of RAM?

Type of RAM (and RAM speed)?

GPU (onboard? card? amount of dedicated RAM or, if onboard, shared with CPU?)

How many databases being loaded? etc.

Any other programs or processes loaded outside of GameEx?

Hard Drive speed? Fragmented data?

Anti-virus and/or malware software?

Based upon these and other factors not mentioned, no two users are going to report the same experience. Everyone is going to see a change and it will appear to load slower since the data is loading at the beginning. This is not something to be alarmed about and it is something that you will need to get used to. What does matter is how is the program running for you after the initial load is complete?

[Bigby]

This time of 15 seconds has been present for awhile now, so I am not suggesting that it is because of the latest update of GameEx. I'm not complaining, just thought that someone would have some good advice on how to decrease this time.

I actually tried to disable all databases at one point by leaving the database entry in the setup wizard blank, but GameEx would still load them.

Those factors you mention are probably the reason mine and krakermans startup times differ. (Krakerman having an I7 cpu, whereas I have a E6500 core duo, among other things)

GameEx is running fine after the intial load, and I do prefer the load at the start, as opposed to how it used to be when selecting a game system entry. So props to Tom for this.

[celly]

I downsized my databases as some where nice but unneccary (Wonderswan, Future Pinball etc.). So now i really just use databases on the more frequently used emulators. My inital boot is minimal but nowhere near the 15 second mark, more like 6-7 seconds, and i have 56 emulators loading 8-10 db.

[Draco1962]

To be honest, mine is probably closer to Bigby's as I have an older quad core (Q6600) but running with 8GB of RAM, slower hard drives (5200 RPM). At the moment I have a ton of stuff open which is taxing the graphics and CPU.

@Bigby - I didn't take what you were saying as a complaint. Actually it was a good thing so that we could illustrate the point I was making about all the contributing factors that can impact performance. Hopefully others will see that that there is little need for concern regarding the recent changes and the mileage is going to very and has, even before the changes that were made.